Childs Parents At The Centre Of A Scandal For Book Week

A photo of a young boy dressed up as troubled former AFL star Ben Cousins and mimicking his drug use for ‘book week’ has gone viral.

The child is pictured wearing a West Coast Eagles jumper and has white flour on his nose, was shared by his father.

In the seven hours that followed the post being shared to a ‘Ben Cousins’ fan page on Facebook, the photo had been commented on 8,100 times and has had over 17,000 likes.

It comes just a week after a similar snap of a child dressed up as current Eagles player Nic Naitanui made headlines as he had his face painted black to create a likeness to the player.

The father wrote on the Ben Cousin’s post 'Check out this little tacker dressing up as the champion AFL legend Ben Cousins for #BookWeek,' the fan page wrote alongside the post. 'Powdered nose the works, future All Australian right here.'

The photo shows the ‘young Ben Cousins’ with his eyes rolling back into his head, which is supposed to demonstrate the effect of drug use.

The child’s father has told Daily Mail that he wants to people ‘lighten up’ and the kid doesn’t understand the meaning of the powder.

'To put all the butt hurt people at ease - he had no idea why he had flour on his nose, and I told him to act silly, and I got the pic,' the man wrote.

'It's a pi** take because of the Nic Nat issue - lighten up.'

Ben Cousins has a history of drug use and has been to rehabilitation facilities in both Australia and the United States.